It takes me a long time to make friends. I am very wary. I didn't really question it until a couple of weeks ago. I think I am suspicious of people because I got invited to peoples houses as a kid with some pretty weird family dynamics.
For instance. When I was a junior school, there was a kid. Let's call him Gary. All kids were called Gary in those days*
*For the purposes of my little memoire all kids will be called Gary. Of course not all kids were called Gary, that would be madness and make my system pointless. If you were called Gary I apologise, if I called you any other name under my system, people would realise that your real name was Gary and there would we be? Just be thankful I called you Gary to prevent people knowing your real name was Gary, Gary!*
*I will work out a name for the girls later. I don't feel there are any comparable female versions of the mighty Gary in that decade. Maybe Tracy? I'll have a think...Oooo Tina! Yes, I think we have it Ladies and gentlemen!
Gary invited me round to his home after school to play games. I didn't feel this was too bad an idea. He seemed like a good kid. Slightly chubby with a basin haircut, brown hair and freckles. I seem to remember a tank top and shorts. Your basic trainee bank clerk. Just add water and wait a few years. I don't remember his dad. I am imagining a balding short man who smokes a pipe and smell of Hornby train sets.
I do remember his mum, a short dumpy lady that had set scoops of ginger ridged hair framing her plump lip-sticked face like a honeycomb halo. Dresses that looked like sofa material. A thick flowery textile bent into shape by fashionable ship builders. She looked very comfortable to sit on, just throw on a few cushions and a cat.
Their house was nothing to write home about. Better than ours of course. I have the instinct that they owned it. There was nice wooden polished furniture and the slow ticking of expensive clocks.
So it felt like the last place someone would try and knife you in the face.
And yet... during a game that I played defeating Gary, he drew a pen knife, a small Christmas cracker pen knife( Yes, we had knives in Christmas Crackers in those days) unfolded and pinned me to the ground trying his hardest to stab me in the face. His little freckled face all screwed up in an angry red eye popping snarl. I kicked him off and screamed for help. His Mum rescued me grabbing her basin haired bad loser. I simply made my excuses and left. Leaving a poor woman to deal with her troubled son. Not sure if I thanked Mrs Gary for their hospitality. My Mum always said I should do that. Oh well, I'm sure she got over it.
I don't think I did.
I steered clear of Gary from then on in. This was not an isolated behaviour from the little people I was surrounded by.
I do have a really early memory. We had a garden with a gate round the side alley. I must have been 4 or 5. Could have been less. The children of our estate were wild. Roaming around in packs. They banged on my gate. We had a nice front garden, which they had walked up to rap on. Climbing up on the fence like Jackals to laugh and taunt me.
My fortress of solitude was breached. However, my mum, let me go out and play with these demon kids. Some of which became my school friends. Gary in particular.
What the heck was my mum doing? On a couple of levels. 1st, she wasn't busy as far as I could tell. Her job at that point was to look after me. Telly was 2 and a half channels. BBC1, ITV and BBC 2 you could just see if it wasn't raining too hard through the static digital blizzard. 2nd, WHAT ARE YOU DOING JEAN, he's 4 to 5 years old and your letting him run about on the streets?
I remember one of the games Gary thought would be fun to play was a delightful game of "Chicken". If you are not fully up to speed with the rules "chicken" it involved the players (ME) to run in front of cars as they tootled down the street. Only for my first run, Gary got me to run in front of a Lorry. It felt like a big one.
I think it was quite close. He honked his horn. I ran and screamed. I got across the road experiencing bullet time as I traverse the tarmac. I blame my premature greyness on that one incident.
I didn't play chicken again. I was stupid, but not quite that stupid.
Bloody Garys!
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